This invention relates to a mirror and more particularly a mirror having excellent nondestructiveness and workability, and a light weight, and a method of manufacturing such mirror at a low cost.
As is well known in the art mirrors are widely used as furnitures, vehicle mirrors, decorative articles or the like by utilizing their high reflectiveness.
Among known mirrors are included so-called glass mirrors, acryl mirrors and aluminum mirrors. A glass mirror is most common and comprises a glass sheet having a thickness of 5 to 10 mm and formed with a mirror surface by utilizing silver mirror reaction, while an acryl mirror comprises an acryl resin sheet with an aluminum layer vapor deposited on one surface thereof. An aluminum mirror comprises an aluminum sheet with one surface thereof plated with chromium.
These mirrors are not advantageous because they lack nondestructiveness, lightness, workability and low manufacturing cost. These defects will be described hereunder by taking a motor car mirror and a decorative mirror as examples.
Where a glass mirror or an acryl mirror is used for a motor car, in order to assure safeness against collision, the mirror is subjected to shatter preventing treatment including a number of process steps but in view of the characteristics of the blank it is difficult to completely prevent shattering. Moreover, the shatter preventing process steps are troublesome, thus increasing the manufacturing cost.
In the case of an aluminum mirror when the aluminum sheet is thin, not only the plating is difficult but also it is difficult to obtain a flat and smooth mirror surface. For this reason, the thickness of the aluminum sheet should be at least 2 to 3 mm which increases the cost.
Recent trend of decreasing fuel consumption of a motor car requires decrease in the weight of various parts of the car in the order of grams. Since a motor car is fabricated with numerous parts to meet this requirement it is necessary to decrease the weight of each part as far as possible, in the order of grams. However, there is a limit for the decrease of the weight of a glass mirror and an aluminum mirror, so that appearance of much lighter mirror has been strongly desired.
Various types of mirrors are used as indoor decorative articles. However, glass and acryl mirrors can not bend, thus manifesting poor workability. On the other hand, an aluminum mirror can bend to some extent but impossible to bend it sharply. In addition, the cutting workability of the aluminum mirror is poor. Thus, each type of mirror has a limit for workability so that it is not suitable as a decorative articles.